Where did my files go??

[scotthselt]

I woke up this morning and I see that my desktop image has reverted to and old photo that I had, and I lost all downloads and music files, etc, that I have downloaded in the past few weeks. where did everything go?

I am using a brand new HP laptop with windows 7, I just bought it.

thanks in advance.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Welcome!

First, try a system restore.

After your changes are restored (if they are), run a virus scan. Download Malwarebytes and run a Full scan.

 

[richc46]

Follow Jon advice. In addition, run that malwarebytes once a week. It is great software.

 

[scotthselt]

Is this a common problem, does Windows 7 do this automatically?

 

[richc46]

No not a common problem. If you read Jon's reply he thinks that it may be a virus and so do I. If your ran the anti virus and the malwarebytes, and came up clean you are ok.

Sometimes there can be a power fluctation or other problem during boot etc, than can cause corruption that must be fixed. Many times it is the A/V that is used that creates the problems. After this is fixed used Microsoft Secutity Essentisals as the A/v

 

[richc46]

You may want to read this:

Data corruption and loss: causes and avoidance

 

[whs]

System restore may not help because it does not restore user files. But your restore points can be put to use. Run Shadow Explorer, go to a restore point from yesterday or the day before, navigate to the files/folders in question (e.g. something like this: C:\Users\your name\Pictures), right click on the folder and Export.